Awakenings’ author, neurologist Dr.Oliver Sacks dies at 82

Dr. Oliver Sacks age 82, died at his home in New York City. He was terminally ill with a rare eye cancer that had spread to his liver. As a practicing neurologist, Sacks looked at some of his patients with a writer’s eye and found publishing gold.

He wrote many books, some of his publications are-

• In his best-selling 1985 book, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” he described a man who really did mistake his wife’s face for his hat while visiting Sacks’ office, because his brain had difficulty interpreting what he saw.
• Sacks’ 1973 book, “Awakenings,” about hospital patients who’d spent decades in a kind of frozen state until Sacks tried a new treatment, led to a 1990 movie in which Sacks was portrayed by Robin Williams. It was nominated for three Academy Awards.
• A prolific journal-keeper, Dr. Sacks compiled more than 600 notebooks. He published his essays in medical journals and magazines like The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books as well as small literary magazines like Antaeus.